Part 5

It would not be easy to say where or when the first log cabin was built, but it is safe to say that it was somewhere in the English colonies of North America, and it is certain that it became the type of the settler's house throughout the whole Middle West. It may be called the 5 American house, the Western house, the Ohio house. Hardly any other house was built for a hundred years by the men who were clearing the land for the stately mansions of our day. As long as the primeval forests stood, the log cabin remained the woodsman's home; and not fifty years ago 10 I saw log cabins newly built in one of the richest and most prosperous regions of Ohio. They were, to be sure, log cabins of a finer pattern than the first settler reared. They were of logs handsomely shaped with the broadax; the joints between the logs were plastered with mortar; the 15 chimney at the end was of stone; the roof was shingled, the windows were of glass, and the door was solid and well hung. They were such cabins as were the homes of the well-to-do settlers in all the older parts of the West. But throughout that region there were many log cabins, mostly sunk to the uses of stables and corn cribs, of the kind that the borderers built in the times of the Indian War, from 1750 to 1800. They were framed of the round logs, untouched by the ax except for the notches at the ends where 5 they were fitted into one another; the chimney was of small sticks stuck together with mud, and was as frail as a barn-swallow's nest; the walls were stuffed with moss, plastered with clay; the floor was of rough boards called puncheons, riven from the block with a heavy knife; the 10 roof was of clapboards, split from logs and laid loosely on the rafters and held in place with logs fastened athwart them.

When the first settlers broke the silence of the woods with the stroke of their axes and hewed out a space for their 15 cabins and their fields, they inclosed their homes with a high stockade of logs, for defense against the Indians; or if they built their cabins outside the wooden walls of their stronghold, they always expected to flee to it at the first alarm and to stand siege within it. The Indians had 20 no cannon, and the logs of the stockade were proof against their rifles; if a breach was made, there was still the blockhouse left, the citadel of every little fort. This was heavily built, and pierced with loopholes for the riflemen within, whose wives ran bullets for them at its mighty hearth, and 25 who kept the savage foe from its sides by firing down upon them through the projecting timbers of its upper story; but in many a fearful siege the Indians set the roof ablaze with arrows wrapped in burning tow, and then the fight became desperate indeed. After the Indian War ended, 30 the stockade was no longer needed, and the settlers had only the wild beasts to contend with, and those constant enemies of the poor in all ages and conditions--hunger and cold.

They deadened the trees around them by girdling them with the ax, and planted the spaces between the leafless trunks with corn and beans and pumpkins. These were 5 their necessaries, but they had an occasional luxury in the wild honey from the hollow of a bee tree when the bears had not got at it. In its season, there was an abundance of wild fruit, plums and cherries, haws and grapes, berries and nuts of every kind, and the maples yielded all the 10 sugar they chose to make from them. But it was long before they had, at any time, the profusion which our modern arts enable us to enjoy the whole year round, and in the hard beginnings the orchard and the garden were forgotten for the fields. Their harvests must pay for the 15 acres bought of the government, or from some speculator who had never seen the land; and the settler must be prompt in paying, or else see his home pass from him after all his toil into the hands of strangers. He worked hard and he fared hard, and if he was safer when peace came, 20 it is doubtful if he were otherwise more fortunate. As the game grew scarcer it was no longer so easy to provide food for his family; the change from venison and wild turkey to the pork which early began to prevail in his diet was hardly a wholesome one. Besides, in cutting down the 25 trees he opened spaces to the sun which had been harmless enough in the shadow of the woods, but which now sent up their ague-breeding miasma. Ague was the scourge of the whole region, and it was hard to know whether the pestilence was worse on the rich levels beside the rivers, or 30 on the stony hills where the settlers sometimes built to escape it.

When once the settler was housed against the weather, he had the conditions of a certain rude comfort indoors. If his cabin was not proof against the wind and rain or snow, its vast fireplace formed the means of heating, while the forest was an inexhaustible store of fuel. At first he dressed 5 in the skins and pelts of the deer and fox and wolf, and his costume could have varied little from that of the red savage about him, for we often read how he mistook Indians for white men at first sight, and how the Indians in their turn mistook white men for their own people. The whole 10 family went barefoot in the summer, but in winter the pioneer wore moccasins of buckskin and buckskin leggins or trousers; his coat was a hunting shirt belted at the waist and fringed where it fell to his knees. It was of homespun, a mixture of wool and flax called linsey-woolsey, 15 and out of this the dresses of his wife and daughters were made. The wool was shorn from the sheep, which were so scarce that they were never killed for their flesh, except by the wolves, which were very fond of mutton but had no use for wool. For a wedding dress a cotton check was 20 thought superb, and it really cost a dollar a yard; silks, satins, laces, were unknown. A man never left his house without his rifle; the gun was a part of his dress, and in his belt he carried a hunting knife and a hatchet; on his head he wore a cap of squirrel skin, often with the plume-like 25 tail dangling from it.

The furniture of the cabins was, like the clothing of the pioneers, homemade. A bedstead was contrived by stretching poles from forked sticks driven into the ground and laying clapboards across them; the bedclothes were 30 bearskins. Stools, benches, and tables were roughed out with auger and broadax; the puncheon floor was left bare, and if the earth formed the floor, no rug ever replaced the grass which was its first carpet. The cabin had but one room, where the whole of life went on by day; the father and mother slept there at night, and the children mounted to their chamber in the loft by means of a ladder. 5

The food was what has been already named. The meat was venison, bear, raccoon, wild turkey, wild duck, and pheasant; the drink was water, or rye coffee, or whisky, which the little stills everywhere supplied only too abundantly. Wheat bread was long unknown, and corn cakes 10 of various makings and bakings supplied its place. The most delicious morsel of all was corn grated while still in the milk and fashioned into round cakes eaten hot from the clapboard before the fire, or from the mysterious depths of the Dutch oven buried in coals and ashes on the hearth. 15 There was soon a great flow of milk from the kine that multiplied in the pastures in the woods, and there was sweetening enough from the maple tree and the bee tree, but salt was very scarce and very dear, and long journeys were made through the perilous woods to and from the 20 licks, or salt springs, which the deer had discovered before the white man or the red man knew them.

The bees which hived their honey in the hollow trees were tame bees gone wild, and with the coming of the settlers some of the wild things increased so much that 25 they became a pest. Such were the crows which literally blackened the fields after the settlers plowed, and which the whole family had to fight from the corn when it was planted. Such were the rabbits, and such, above all, were the squirrels, which overran the farms and devoured every 30 green thing till the people combined in great squirrel hunts and destroyed them by tens of thousands. The larger game had meanwhile disappeared. The buffalo and the elk went first; the deer followed, and the bear, and even the useless wolf. But long after these the poisonous reptiles lingered, the rattlesnake, the moccasin, and the yet-deadlier copperhead; and it was only when the whole 5 country was cleared that they ceased to be a very common danger.

--_Stories of Ohio._

1. Make a pen or pencil sketch of the log house Howells describes; of the bedstead. Help the class make a display board of printed pictures that illustrate the objects mentioned.

2. What were the hardships of pioneering? The pleasures? Make a list of modern household conveniences the American pioneer did not have.

WITCHCRAFT

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is one of the best-known figures in American literature. He was a New Englander, and most of his writings deal with events or situations located in New England. He was especially happy in retelling old stories or in constructing tales from historical events.

Sir William Phips became Governor of Massachusetts in 1692. Almost as soon as he assumed the government he became engaged in a frightful business which might have perplexed a wiser and better-cultivated head than his. This was the witchcraft delusion, which originated 5 in the wicked arts of a few children. They belonged to the Rev. Mr. Parris, minister of Salem. These children complained of being pinched, and pricked with pins, and otherwise tormented, by the shapes of men and women, who were supposed to have power to haunt them invisibly both in darkness and daylight.

Often in the midst of their family and friends the children would pretend to be seized with strange convulsions and 5 would cry out that the witches were afflicting them. These stories spread abroad and caused great tumult and alarm. From the foundation of New England it had been the custom of the inhabitants, in matters of doubt and difficulty, to look to their ministers for counsel. So they did now; 10 but unfortunately the ministers and wise men were more deluded than the illiterate people. Cotton Mather, a very learned and eminent clergyman, believed that the whole country was full of witches and wizards who had given up their hopes of heaven and signed a covenant with 15 the Evil One.

Nobody could be certain that his nearest neighbor or most intimate friend was not guilty of this imaginary crime. The number of those who pretended to be afflicted by witchcraft grew daily more numerous; and they bore 20 testimony against many of the best and worthiest people. A minister named George Burroughs was among the accused. In the months of August and September, 1692, he and nineteen other innocent men and women were put to death. The place of execution was a high hill on the 25 outskirts of Salem; so that many of the sufferers, as they stood beneath the gallows, could discern their habitations in the town.

The killing of these guiltless persons served only to increase the madness. The afflicted now grew bolder in 30 their accusations. Many people of rank and wealth were either thrown into prison or compelled to flee for their lives. Among these were two sons of old Simon Bradstreet, the last of the Puritan governors. Mr. Willard, a pious minister of Boston, was cried out upon as a wizard in open court. Mrs. Hale, the wife of the minister of Beverly, was likewise accused. Philip English, a rich merchant of 5 Salem, found it necessary to take flight, leaving his property and business in confusion. But a short time afterward the Salem people were glad to invite him back.

The boldest thing the accusers did was to cry out against the Governor's own beloved wife. Yes, the lady of Sir 10 William Phips was accused of being a witch and of flying through the air to attend witch meetings. When the Governor heard this, he probably trembled.

Our forefathers soon became convinced that they had been led into a terrible delusion. All the prisoners on 15 account of witchcraft were set free. But the innocent dead could not be restored to life, and the hill where they were executed will always remind people of the saddest and most humiliating passage in our history.

--_Grandfather's Chair._

1. Find a biography of Hawthorne and report to the class on one of the following topics: his youth and education; his early manhood; his writings. In place of either of these subjects you may substitute the retelling of another story of Hawthorne's you have read.

2. Briefly, what is the history of witchcraft in New England?

3. How do you account for people as level-headed as the New England settlers believing in witches?

TEA PARTIES IN OLD NEW YORK

BY WASHINGTON IRVING

This extract portrays social life among the early Dutch settlers on the island of Manhattan. It is written in Irving's deliciously humorous style.

In those happy days, a well-regulated family always rose with the dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed at sundown. Dinner was invariably a private meal, and the fat old burghers showed incontestable symptoms of disapprobation and uneasiness on being surprised by a 5 visit from a neighbor on such occasions. But though our worthy ancestors were thus singularly averse to giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bonds of intimacy by occasional banquetings, called tea parties.

As this is the first introduction of those delectable orgies 10 which have since become so fashionable in this city, I am conscious my fair readers will be very curious to receive information on the subject. Sorry am I that there will be but little in my description calculated to excite their admiration. I can neither delight them with accounts of suffocating 15 crowds, nor brilliant drawing rooms, nor towering feathers, nor sparkling diamonds, nor immeasurable trains.

I can detail no choice anecdotes of scandal, for in those primitive times the simple folk were either too stupid or too good-natured to pull each other's characters to pieces; 20 nor can I furnish any whimsical anecdotes of brag--how one lady cheated or another bounced into a passion; for as yet there was no junto of dulcet old dowagers who met to win each other's money and lose their own tempers at a card table.

These fashionable parties were generally confined to the higher classes, or _noblesse_; that is to say, such as kept their own cows and drove their own wagons. The company 5 commonly assembled at three o'clock and went away about six, unless it was winter time, when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might get home before dark. I do not find that they ever treated their company to ice creams, jellies, or sillabubs, or regaled them with 10 musty almonds, moldy raisins, or sour oranges, as is often done in the present age of refinement. Our ancestors were fond of more sturdy, substantial fare. The tea table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into morsels, and swimming 15 in gravy.

The company, being seated around the genial board and each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in launching at the fattest pieces of this mighty dish in much the same manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea or 20 our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple pies or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast of an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough fried in hog's fat and called doughnuts; a delicious kind 25 of cake, at present scarce known in this city except in genuine Dutch families.

The tea was served out of a majestic delft teapot ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses tending pigs, with boats sailing in the air 30 and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a huge copper teakettle which would have made the pigmy macaronis of these degenerate days sweat merely to look at it. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with 5 great decorum; until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend a large lump directly over the tea table by a string from the ceiling, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth--an ingenious expedient, which is still kept up by some 10 families in Albany, but which prevails without exception in Communipaw, Bergen, Flatbush, and all our uncontaminated Dutch villages.

At these primitive tea parties the utmost propriety and dignity of deportment prevailed. No flirting nor coquetting; 15 no gambling of old ladies nor hoyden chattering and romping of young ones; no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen with their brains in their pockets nor amusing conceits and monkey divertisements of smart young gentlemen with no brains at all. 20

The parties broke up without noise and without confusion. They were carried home by their own carriages; that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, excepting such of the wealthy as could afford to keep a wagon.

--_Knickerbocker's History of New York._

1. Read some passages in which Irving pokes fun at the Dutch customs; at the customs of his own times.

2. How was a tea party conducted in New Amsterdam?

3. Explain these words: incontestable, disapprobation, averse, delectable, orgies, whimsical, junto, dulcet, dowagers, macaronis, pigmy, hoyden, divertisements. Read your definition into the sentence where the word occurs.

A SCHOOL OF LONG AGO

BY EDWARD EGGLESTON

The following description of a pioneer school in Pennsylvania affords a fine opportunity to study the methods of teaching then in vogue. Many of them may appeal to us as being ludicrous; but undoubtedly Dock's teaching was in many ways far in advance of the times, when the usual and most-approved method of "imparting knowledge" consisted in beating ideas into pupils' heads with hickory switches.

A hundred and fifty years ago there was a famous teacher among the German settlers in Pennsylvania, who was known as "The Good Schoolmaster." His name was Christopher Dock, and he had two little country schools. For three days he would teach at a little place called Skippack, 5 and then for the next three days he would teach at Salford.

People said that the good schoolmaster never lost his temper. There was a man who thought he would try to make him angry. He said many harsh and abusive words 10 to the teacher, and even cursed him; but the only reply the teacher made was, "Friend, may the Lord have mercy on you."

Other schoolmasters used to beat their scholars severely with whips and long switches; but Schoolmaster Dock 15 had found a better way. When a child came to school for the first time, the other scholars were made to give the new scholar a welcome by shaking hands with him one after another. Then the new boy or girl was told that this was not a harsh school but a place for those who would behave. And if a scholar were lazy, disobedient, or stubborn, the master would in the presence of the whole school pronounce him not fit for this school but only for a school where children were flogged. The new scholar was asked 5 to promise to obey and to be diligent. When he had made this promise, he was shown to a seat.

"Now," the good master would say, when this was done, "who will take this new scholar and help him to learn?" When the new boy or girl was clean and bright 10 looking, many would be willing to take charge of him or her; but there were few ready to teach a dirty, ragged little child. Sometimes no one would wish to do it. In such a case the master would offer to the one who would take such a child a reward of one of the beautiful texts of Scripture 15 which the schoolmasters of that time used to write and decorate for the children. Or he would give him one of the pictures of birds which he was accustomed to paint with his own hands.

Whenever one of the younger scholars succeeded in 20 learning his A, B, C, Christopher Dock would send word to the father of the child to give him a penny, and he would ask his mother to cook two eggs for him as a treat. These were fine rewards for poor children in a new country.

There were no clocks or watches in the country. The 25 children came to school one after another, taking their places near the master, who sat writing. They spent their time reading until all were there; but everyone who succeeded in reading his passage without mistake stopped reading and came and sat at the writing table to write. 30 The poor fellow who remained last on the bench was called the Lazy Scholar.

Every Lazy Scholar had his name written on the blackboard. If a child at any time failed to read correctly, he was sent back to study his passage and called again after a while. If he failed a second or a third time, all the scholars cried out, "Lazy!" Then his name was written on 5 the blackboard, and all the poor Lazy Scholar's friends went to work to teach him to read his lesson correctly. And if his name should not be rubbed off the board before school was dismissed, all the scholars might write it down and take it home with them. But if he could read well before 10 school was out, the scholars, at the bidding of the master, called out, "Industrious!" and then his name was erased.

The funniest of Dock's rewards was that which he gave to those who made no mistake in their lessons. He marked a large O with chalk on the hand of the perfect scholar. 15 Fancy what a time the boys and girls must have had, trying to go home without rubbing out this O!